The Gneissose- Granite of the Himalayas. 307 



is of Tertiary age. " After what has been said," he writes, " con- 

 cerning the Laichi Khun section, its Tertiary age is plainly im- 

 possible." In view of this contention it becomes necessary to 

 examine the Laichi Khun facts in some little detail. 



The description of the Laichi Khun and Hubeeboollah section 

 begins at p. 129 in the Memoir under consideration, and the argu- 

 ment based on the facts is stated at p. 135 as follows : — " I must now 

 invite attention to one of the most important deductions that may be 

 drawn from the Gurhee-Hubeeboollah sections. In a previous 

 memoir (Physical Geology of the Sub-Himalaya of Kumaun and 

 Garwall ^) I remarked on the absence of metamorphism in the Upper 

 Tertiaries and Nuramulitics in the vicinity of the schistose and 

 granite area of Kalogarhi (also called Kalandanda, and latterly 

 Lansdowne) as offering a not very rigid proof that the Tertiaries at 

 least were deposited later than the date of the general metamorphism 

 of the Himalaya by the intrusion of the gneissose-granite." 



I objected to this evidence in a footnote to my Presidential 

 Address,^ on the ground that the granite appeared to be five miles 

 distant from the Tertiaries ; and Mr. Middlemiss seems to have felt 

 the force of it, for he now says that the -'proof" is not "very 

 rigid," and proceeds as follows : — 



" We have here before us in this corner of the mountains a much 

 more satisfactory proof, inasmuch as the Murree beds, the Nummu- 

 litic limestone, together with the sandstone beds at the base, lie all 

 in direct and normal superposition immediately above thin-bedded 

 rocks exhibiting distinct metamorphism. They form outliers cap- 

 ping the tops of the hills, whilst the schistose slates form the base of 

 the same hill range." 



The author does not tell us what series the " thin-bedded rocks 

 exhibiting distinct metamorphism " belong to ; but I presume, from 

 his descriptibn of the section between Srikote and Laichi Khun (the 

 section referred to, pp. 131, 132), and from the geological map 

 which accompanies the Memoir, that these beds belong to the Itifra- 

 Trias. Notwithstanding the use of the phrase " normal super- 

 position," the beds can hardly be referred to the Cretaceous, 

 Jurassic, or Triassic series, as that would be opposed to the author's 

 argument that the contact-metamorphism of the granite goes no 

 higher, at most, than the Infra-Trias. Neither the map nor the detailed 

 description of this section show the presence of beds of the " Tanol " 

 or of the " Slate " series between Hubeeboollah and Laichi Khun ; 

 and as it would not get rid of the difficulty, but, on the contrary, 

 increase it, to refer the thin-bedded rocks to either of these series, 

 I am forced to the conclusion that the metamorphosed beds belong 

 to the author's Infra-Trias series. But, even so, it is clear that 

 a tremendous fault, or a great unconformity, intervenes between the 

 Nummulitic and Infra-Triassic beds. The author writes at p. 131 : 

 " In this section, which shows no signs of faulting above the Infra- 

 Trias, there is neither Trias, Jura, nor Cretaceous represented. 



1 Memoirs G.S.I., xxiv, pt. 2. 



2 Proc. Geol. Assoc, yoL xiv, p. 93. 



